With the exception of flirtation, in which she would have taken the highest honours, her accomplishments were neither more nor less than those of most women of her position. She played brilliantly, with a firm, dashing touch, and sang, perhaps not artistically, but with an amount of feeling thrown into her deep contralto that did frightful execution; her French was very good; her German passable, grammatical, and well phrased, but lacking the real rough accent and guttural smack. At all events, she had made the most of what schooling she had had, for it was desultory enough. Her father, the youngest son of a good family, ran away with the black-eyed, ruddy-cheeked daughter of the Herefordshire parson with whom he went to read during the Long Vacation; was immediately disinherited by his father; left the University, and by the influence of his family got into a Government office; where, by his own exertions, he got into bad company, into debt, and into prison. On his deathbed he commended his wife and daughter to the care of his elder sister, who had never married, but lived very comfortably on the property which ought to have been his. Miss Lexden came once to see her brother's widow and orphan in the lodgings which they had taken in Lambeth to be near the King's Bench Prison. But years of trouble had not changed the poor mother for the better, and her stately sister-in-law regarded her with horror. In truth, the colour had faded from her rosy cheeks, and the light died out of her black eyes long ago, and had left her a dowdy, silly, fussy little woman, with nothing to say. So Miss Lexden thought she could best fulfil her brother's charge with least trouble to herself by allowing the bereaved ones fifty pounds a year; and on this, and what she could make by working for the Berlin-wool and fancy-stationery shops, the widow supported herself and her child for some twelve years, when she died. Miss Lexden then took the child to the dull, stately old house in Gloucester Place, Portman Square; where, with the aid of a toady, the daily visit of a smug physician, an airing in a roomy old carriage drawn by a couple of fat horses, a great deal of good eating and drinking, and a tolerable amount of society, she managed to lead a jolly godless old life. She found her niece, then fourteen years old, less ignorant and more presentable than she had imagined; for Barbara had received from her mother a sound English education, and had, on the pea-and-pigeon principle, picked lip a little French and the rudiments of music. She looked and moved like a lady, and moreover had an insolence of manner, a _de haut en bas_ treatment of nearly every body, which the old lady hailed as a true Lexden characteristic, and rejoiced over greatly. So Barbara was sent to Paris for three years, and came back at seventeen finished in education, ripened in beauty, and a thorough coquette at heart. Of course she had already had several _affaires_: several with the